Into the Labyrinth
by DarkmoonSigel
Summary: Saw a prompt on Tumblr about Faun Will and it tickled me pink enough to write something for it. All credit going to luvkurai. So here you go, Faun Will meeting Wendigo Hannibal set in the Labyrinth universe. M/M Does it still count as cannibalism if it's a wendigo eating a goblin? Hmmmm...
1. Chapter 1

AN- I decided to go with the faun mythology instead of the satyr. Fauns are supposed to be more beautiful than satyrs, but are considered more foolish and liable to make bad decisions.

OoOoO

There were many small worlds within the Labyrinth. As ruler and crafter of this fairy realm, the Goblin King Jareth created them all with equal amounts of fickle whim, cruel intent, and powerful magic. Some of these places were meant to teach a lesson, others to tempt fools from their quests, and even more to instill horror and perhaps even death upon anyone who dared enter the Labyrinth.

Such places tended to exist side by side in strange cohabitation so one needed to be wary of where they wandered, and keep their wits about them at all times. A harmless looking pond could lie at the heart of a black rose garden, the heavy blooms smelling strangely sweet of fever and meat about to turn. What looked like reprieve from flowers that held teeth behind their petals would actually turn out to be waters filled with landlocked mermaids who were just as hungry as the roses.

The powerful yet capricious ruler of this bizarre kingdom was inclined to forget about these strange places and realms within realms he made out of his own dream stuff though. The framework for the Labyrinth would always remain in place, but the things that chose to live there or were lured there were pretty much left to their own devices, to live and die by their own rules and laws. A prime example of this was the Meadows of Wolf Trap and the Baltimore Woods of the Ripper, a hidden world surrounded by a particully high hedge maze.

The Meadows of Wolf Trap were home to the fauns, slim lithe creatures made to please and for pleasure. Fauns was gentle enough compared to what else lived in the Labyrinth, good natured beings who danced and sang and thought about little else other than food, wine, and fornication. Half human from the waist up and half goat from the waist down with the exception of two little horns that sprung from their forehead, the fauns looked harmless enough, but were not to be taken lightly. Nothing in the Labyrinth was as it seemed after all. Any being foolish enough to offend, or try and harm a faun would find themselves caught in the music of their panpipes and subjected to their whims which could run cruel. If they felt so inclined, the fauns could send anyone who had drawn their ire into the Ripper's forest.

The Meadows of Wolf Trap, full of sparkling rivers, great rolling hills and valleys, faded into the Baltimore Woods where no faun, or any sane creature with any ounce of common sense, would go. Dark, deep, and so very dangerous being a maze in its own right within the Labyrinth, the forest was home to the wendigo. Part stag, part raven, part human, but all nightmare, the being who lived in this forest was so feared he was only referred to as The Ripper. Little else was known about him, but much was told in stories traded over goblin wine and across firelight.

Entertainment value aside, little thought was given to the wendigo by the fauns though. The dark creature could only exist and hunt in the dark permanent cover of its forests, and fauns lived for an open sky, sun, and moonlight. The herd knew as long as they stayed out of the forest and sent in the occasional meal, they were safe from the wendigo who seemed content to stay in his own small kingdom of sorts. When they remembered, the fauns would even warn travelers off from the woods…..

….if they remembered….

The herd consisted of nine fauns in all, Jack and Bella being the unofficial leaders of the herd. Beverly, Jimmy, and Bryan would often be seen in their company while Alana, Abigail, and Freddie rounded out the group, the ladies coming and going as they pleased. While all the other fauns tended to stay close together, always in each other's companionship in one form, couple, or another, the exception to this was a faun named Will.

The dark furred faun with the stormy blue eyes and somber nature could often be found in his own company, choosing to keep close to the streams and ponds that dotted the meadow. His isolation was self imposed for Will had a terrible secret, one that seemed to taint him from within, keeping the other fauns away. If his herd ever found out his secret, Will would be on his own for good, exiled by the other fauns.

Unlike the others of his herd who only grazed on fruit and grass, Will ate meat, craved it even. He hadn't meant for it to happen. It had started out small, tried out of curiosity. A small bird here, a fairy there, anything relatively freshly dead was nibbled upon. Will tried his best to hide his new fascination with this strange food, even going so far as to catch fish out of the rivers to try and keep it to himself.

It the end though, it was that longing for blood and fresh red meat that drove him into the forest. Will wasn't even sure what he was looking for there. All he knew was that he had to find something to eat, discover food that would fill the endless void growing in his stomach and mind. Nothing seemed to fill it anymore, that emptiness that gave him fevers and nightmares. Music, goblin wine, and the grapes that grew in the meadow left him feeling empty and hollow no matter how much he ate and drank.

Starving for what he could not name, Will didn't even know what he was hoping to find as he picked his way carefully through the dark slumbering forest, the high canopy of leaves so thick and tangled no light could enter, casting everything in shadow and lingering dark that clung to every trunk like a heavy velvet cloak. Lichen that grew on the dozing trees shed some light, soft glowing patches of blue moss that seemed to weave in and out of lost foxfire mists.

A squeal of pain shattering the pretend night caught Will's attention, drawing the faun to a small clearing nearby, careful of waking wood, some of the trees cracking their eyes to hazily find the source of the noise themselves before losing interest. Hiding behind a still sleeping tree, Will peeked around its glowing girth to find the source of such torment, nearly biting off the tip of his tongue in an effort to stay quiet. Standing tall and wicked in the center of the clearing with a dying goblin in its claws was the Ripper.

The bottom half of the wendigo was like that of a deer if the animal had inky black fur that held raven's plumes within its pelt. The feathers tinted the fur with shades of shimmering violets, blues, and greens like a corrupt opal from the wendigo's lean hips to its cloven hooves. The wendigo's top half was like that of a man's with pale scarred skin, a silvering hairy chest, and face looking carved out of stone for all the expression it gave, but like a faun's, the wendigo had horns growing from out the top of his head. Unlike Will's own tiny goat horns that budded from his forehead, the wendigo's horns was a full rack of antlers made all of black bone and razor points, stained with a patina of dried blood and crusted gore.

The foolish goblin in the wendigo's talons was dying bloody, the creature breathing out the last of its pathetic existence in pained gasps. Its passing was witnessed by a sanguine gaze full of distain and loathing for it. Will could read that much off the wendigo. It wasn't killing the goblin because it was hungry. The Ripper's latest victim had annoyed him, the goblin probably stumbling into his forest uninvited on a fool's errand.

The goblin was treated like the garbage it was considered to be by its killer, the wendigo throwing the creature to the ground to leave it where it landed. Stalking off, the Ripper didn't even bother to watch the goblin die, its blood soaking into the soft forest's floor.

Waiting until the wendigo disappeared from sight and hearing, Will tiptoed out on cloven hooves, tentative and wary as he approached the cooling corpse. As scared as he was, Will could already feel his mouth beginning to water as he scented the air ripe with wet iron and fear. Shaking from tip of horn to toe of hoof, Will reaching done to press his hand up against the mangled body, letting the still warm blood thickly coat his fingers.

Raising his hand up, Will stared at it, admiring how the goblin's lost life seemed to cling to his skin, how pretty it looked in the low light, like liquid rubies and onyx running together. He found that it tasted even better, Will pressing his fingers into his mouth to greedily suck at the digits, licking them clean sooner than he would have liked.

The flavors burst on his tongue, more bright and brilliant that anything he had ever tasted before. Before he had only eaten meat he had found, left out to rot a bit, perhaps a baby bird who had broken its own neck by falling out of the nest or the occasional fairy who hadn't been paying enough attention to avoid better predators than it.

This death was fresh though, vivid in flavor without a hint of rot. It was sublime, the taste of it making Will groan out loud around his fingers, his eyes fluttering shut as he gave himself over to pleasure like his kind tended to do, focusing all his senses upon the feeling. Delight and strange fulfillment tickled his tongue and throat, easing down into his stomach to warm it. The thought of shoving more than just blood into his mouth, filling himself with fresh meat made the faun moan and sigh, his sex beginning to grow heavy and full with the promise of contentment.

"What are you doing?"

Will's eyes shot open at the sound of accented words, cultured and well formed, that phrases coming from the lips of the terrifying being who towered over the tiny faun. The wendigo was so close all Will could do was stare up and up, faun's frightened grey blue eyes meeting keen maroon that regarded him with an open curious look.

Doing the first thing that came to panicked mind, Will did the most unlikely thing. Considering his only viewed option was to become the wendigo's next victim, the faun sprung forward to head butt the wendigo in the stomach. The blow didn't hurt the creature of course, but it did startle it enough to make it pause in surprise, giving the faun the chance it needed to run away.

Fauns had their own magic, based in music and their pipes. Will's own instrument hung at his side from its braided grass cord that looped over his shoulder, but to weave that sort of magic took time, effort, and breathe he didn't have. Speed was the other weapon in a faun's arsenal. Few creatures were faster than a faun on a good day. One that was frightened out of its mind could outrun the wind if need be.

Breaking through the tree line like a shot, Will looked back over his shoulder to see the wendigo stop at the last safe shadow, the creature staring after him. It could come no further until nightfall and even then only if there was no moon and cloudy skies to blot out the stars. Will was relatively safe for now as he slid to a stop, leaving dual furrows in the turf from his hooves. His instincts told him to keep going, to run all the way back to his herd, even if they were reluctant of his company.

What stayed Will's retreat was that the wendigo didn't appear to be angry. If anything, it still regarded him with curiosity. Its frustration stemmed from the fact it could go no further, forced to keep to the safety of shade and shadow.

"What is your name?" Will called to it before he could stop himself, his own interest peeked despite his trepidation. He lived with fear of some sort or another on a constant basis so really what was one more.

The wendigo seemed surprised by the question, or least as far as Will could tell, the creature straightening to its full height so that its antlers brushed up against lower branches, making the trees stir grumpily in their sleep. It made Will wonder if anyone had ever dared to ask the wendigo such a question before.

"Hannibal. And yours, little faun?" the wendigo responded in that cool voice of his, reminding Will of a brook he liked to take fish from.

"William…" the faun answered hesitantly, shivering as he tried to keep himself from crouching low to the ground in an effort to hide himself. "…but I like to be called Will."

"Then I shall do so as well, though I must be leaving now. The sun hurts my eyes." Hannibal smiled, the expression slow and wicked with the glint of sharp teeth. It made Will tremble, the faun tucking his stubby tail between his legs as he sunk into the tall grass. "But Will…..before I go, I have to tell you…..

"Yes?"

"….I know your secret."

OoOoO  
>TBC?<p> 


	2. Chapter 2

Invited in or forced to participate, travelers in the Labyrinth were an infrequent occurrence as it was. Those who chose to enter Hannibal's woods were even rarer still. To manage coming this far in the game meant either the traveler was very intelligent and clever, or ridiculously lucky. The former would have the sense to avoid Hannibal's woods altogether in that case. The latter would typically find that their luck had finally run out if they decided not to mind their manners. The trees would tell on them if they were discourteous.

Usually, the ones who walked through the wendigo's permanent night alight with fungus stars of eerie blue and greenish gold nebulas of foxfire mists were desperate. Fear made beings rude and Hannibal so despised the rude.

It was why the faun stood out in Hannibal's mind all the more. Yes, Will could be viewed as desperate in his own way. That being said though, Hannibal had never seen another being, besides himself of course, respond to food in such a manner. It had been an intense reaction to such a small sampling of a poor feast. The sweet scent of arousal had been an unexpected as well, but welcome.

Between that odor and the alluring noises the faun had made, Hannibal had been drawn back to his most recent kill, a ill fated messenger of Jareth's and one the Goblin King must have not cared for much. Hannibal never sent messages, or the messengers, back.

Not only was the faun unusual in manner, but his appearance was just as unique, almost pretty in a way. Fauns, even the dusky skin toned ones, tended to have light colored fur. Jack and Bella were the most striking pair of the herd, having bright silver fur while Beverly sported burnt gold. The other fauns ranged from dappled soft earthen tones and even bright red in Freddie's case.

In comparison, Will stuck out like a strip of night trying to sneak into day with his dark fur. The faun's legs were covered in black brown fur the same shade as the loose curls that covered his head, making his skin look paler than it actually was. Though fauns had a perpetual youthful look and air about them, their faces unlined with the ravages of time and their human torsos hairless and well toned, Will still managed to carry this heavy soberness in his skin and eyes.

Or so Hannibal had observed from the safety of his woods, moving along the fringe of its borders in order to catch any glimpses of the strange faun. It was easier than expected for Will didn't seem to keep company well with his herd. He would often wander off to the more shaded recluse areas of streams and fish out minnows there, eating the tiny fish quickly with darting eyes and shaking hands.

To a certain extent, spying was unnecessary Hannibal realized much to his delight. Will kept sneaking back into his woods, despite the danger of it. Feeling such strange joy, Hannibal would walk beside the faun without him knowing it, the wendigo hiding with and in shadow seamlessly to keep other lesser predators and fae away from his faun.

Such an intrusion into his claimed space would usually be dealt with in a prompt and often violent manner, but Hannibal's claws were stayed as the wendigo dwelled on his visitor's reasons for being here. It wasn't hard to figure out. Though inexperienced, the faun was hunting. Will probably didn't even know he was doing such a thing, the wendigo realized as he watched the faun scent the air and stalk silently through the underbrush.

As foolish as Will's motivations were, Hannibal found his strange new company interesting. He'd had prey fight back before. That was to be expected, but nothing had ever landed the first blow before upon him. If Will had actually been something impressive, his attack might have been wounding. As it was, the head butt had only been startling, hardly even leaving a red mark on Hannibal's belly for more than a few minutes.

Secondly, Hannibal had never had anyone ask his name before. It was such a simple common courtesy that no one seemed able to remember to do in his presence. So much brutality could be avoided by offering up that small politeness, and yet it had only been a silly faun who had done so.

If Hannibal had to admit a fault of his, he would ignore the elephant in the room dressed up as pride and say his curiosity. Which was the motivation as to why he was back in their clearing, and it was Will and his clearing now, tearing apart a harpy with his talons. The wendigo could feel the faun watching him, quiet and hidden as a worm in a wall.

Surprisingly, Hannibal rather like the idea of someone studying him, perhaps even admiring his work. Feeling oddly motivated to please, Hannibal made the kill as showy as possible, dispatching the harpy in a bone and blood mist that painted the clearing red as he sent bits and pieces flying everywhere. By the time Hannibal was done, the flora dripped with crimson dew and was dusted with a fresh snowfall of feathers, making the forest groan aloud in its sleep as it accepted the new nightmare painted upon it before settling back into soft snoring.

Satisfied, Hannibal pretended to leave, the wendigo climbing trees easier than any creature with cloven hooves should. From his perch, Hannibal watched with bated breath as the fawn emerged from his hiding. Tentative and wary, it took time, but soon enough Will was lured out. The gift Hannibal had left him was far too tempting not to.

Like before, the faun seemed to enjoy himself with blood alone, dipping his delicate fingers into the harpy's lost life to suck it off, and licking the wet crimson off leaves, grazing on death. Hannibal found himself captivated by that quick pink tongue darting out from between plush lips. It was clever in its movements, working its slick length around slim fingers and leaf alike.

The noises the faun was making were just as alluring as the movements of his mouth, strange soft sounds of shallow breathing, desperate and almost panting. It was pitched low and sweet enough that Hannibal had to move in closer to hear every note, the wendigo descending light as any spirit a few feet away from the faun. He was hard pressed to remember anything else he'd heard that was sweeter than the faun giving himself over to pleasure.

From what he could tell, blood did little to quench the little one's thirst though for long, the faun gaining courage enough to start trying out the meat. Shredded pieces of flesh were picked up off the ground were they had been flung to be thoroughly nibbled upon before swallowed down. Will was panting audibly now by the time he finished those, his cock no longer hidden by his fur.

Wanting to end the distance between them but knowing that would finish this encounter in an unpleasant manner, Hannibal held himself back, but just barely as the wendigo used his power to edge in as close as he dared. Near enough to touch, to cut, to wound, but also to scent, Hannibal curving himself over the faun to luxuriate in his odor.

Fauns were such delicate creatures in Hannibal's opinion, with their blunted teeth, tiny horns, and weakness for matter of the flesh and food. Will smelled of the meadow, full of its hateful sunshine and open fresh air. Underneath all that though was the feverishly sweet scent of fear and a hunger Hannibal was well familiar with. It only grew more intense as the faun went for the literal heart of the matter, his finger clenching down on the lump of ruined organ.

Bending over the heart like someone was going to take it away from him, Will clutched it in his hands, staining everything inch of his skin down to his forearms with sticky red. When his teeth sank into the harpy's heart, Will fell to his knees, overcome by it all as his hips languidly moved in time with his chewing. Spreading his thighs wide apart to accommodate himself, the faun came untouched, desperately feeding upon another's heart. With the faun's spent looking like pearls set flush with rubies, Hannibal fell out of lust and straight into love.

Covering in blood now, the faun laid back, exhausted from all his efforts. On his back with spine still arched in pleasure, Will looked like an offering, one that Hannibal was tempted to take right there and then with his sex feeling too hard and heavy between his legs. It could be ignored for now though, Hannibal making himself only watch as the faun took deep breathes in and out to make his sides shudder and heave. His skin shone, slick with sweat that mingled with blood to smell strangely floral to the wendigo, like star jasmine tainted with copper.

As much as he wanted to flip Will onto his belly and drive himself into the tight heat he knew would be there, Hannibal let the faun depart unmolested and unharmed, the wendigo making sure of that. From the sanctity of his shadows, Hannibal watched as Will bathed himself in a small brook that ran near the woods. The wendigo considered it a travesty as the faun lost his new colorings, though he did admire the way water clung to Will's skin and hair, curling the latter into ringlets.

Satisfied that Will was safe now that he was out of the woods, Hannibal returned to the clearing until he came to the place where Will had lain. Crouching down, the wendigo scented the ground, savoring the salt left behind by the faun. Pearlescent drops of cum were collected up by Hannibal's tongue, the wendigo reveling in the faun's essance as he rubbed himself against the ground, rolling about to get what he wanted. The need to mark was strong, Hannibal feeling oddly desperate to know just how their scents would smell like mixed together.

Sighing into the dirt and ignoring the tree waking up long enough to chuckle at him, Hannibal knew the faun would be back. When Will returned, Hannibal would be ready for him.

OoOoO

TBC


	3. Chapter 3

It was the scent of smoke that drew him back. After finding himself coated up to his elbows in another's blood, Will had resolved never to return to the wendigo's forest. Not after what he had done, let himself do…

…but something was burning. No, Will realized as he delicately sniffed the air, not burning. Cooking. Something was cooking over a fire, and the smell of it was making Will's stomach growl in echoes, the growing space within him feeling so hollow. As he made his way back to the sleeping woods filled with too many closed eyes, Will briefly wondered if he was cursed, if meat itself carried a spell within it. He shouldn't have started, but now that he had, Will found he couldn't stop.

Meat was murder, and he was becoming a killer.

The scent led him back to the now familiar space of the clearing he frequented, the wendigo sitting out in the open, illuminated in shades of gold by the fire's flames he cooked over. Meat that could have been from anything by now was being seasoned and grilled in tender strips, fat dripping off of it to fragrantly sizzle and crackle.

Biting his bottom lip to keep from whimpering, Will's hunger only seemed to get worse. The faun's natural diet of grapes and grass tasted like ash now to him, and the fish Will caught were barely enough to get him by, little losses of aquatic life sacrificed to his new appetite. The fairies avoided him altogether now, having finally figured it out that he was becoming something other. To his credit, his herd had yet to find out though his continued absences were starting to raise some questions with Jack and Freddie.

"I know you're there, little faun." were the words that made Will skitter back, until he realized that the wendigo hadn't moved from his fire.

"Why don't you join me? It's rude to stare." Hannibal said, finally deigning to look up. He found Will easily enough in the dark despite all the faun's hiding and attempted subterfuge.

Heart pounding and his breathing coming out rapid and shallow, Will edged forward to the boundaries of the clearing. He looked up with wide eyes to find himself being calmly regarded by Hannibal who chose not to comment about the distance still between them though his eyes clearly measured it.

"Why do you keep coming here? Why do you spy on me? Why do you feel the need to taste my kills?" Hannibal asked in rapid succession, letting the faun know that he had not only been seen but observed. "I can think of far less painful ways to die than risking my ire."

"May I have some?" Will swallowed hard, his throat clicking. He was aware that the wendigo was toying with him, asking questions he already knew the answers to. Will also realized that he was in grave danger, but he was so famished. "Please?"

Risking another look at the wendigo, Will found Hannibal studying him with an indeterminable look, his nod slight and easy to miss if he hadn't been looking.

"I thought fauns didn't eat meat." Hannibal pointed out with a soft smile, watching as Will came closer to him. Inborn instinct was making the faun's legs shake and his knees knock together with every hoof step, but compulsion was driving Will forward. It was charming watch the war within, what desire would win out over the other.

"They don't." Will admitted sadly, his shame snuffing out his new need enough to bring him to an abrupt halt. He should leave now, while he still could. There was still enough distance between them that Will was confident that he could escape.

"Ah. I see. You've come alone because you are unique. How interesting." Hannibal said, taking off the last of the meat from the fire. Hiding his displeasure of the faun's stop, Hannibal purposely put it on a leaf beside him, rounding out the tender grilled pile.

"You're alone too." Will said defensively, his embarrassment and shame making him snappish as the faun stomped his hooves into the dirt.

"I am…" Hannibal allowed it, though he frowned a warning at Will's rude outburst. The faun was too entertaining to dispose of. Allowances could be made for now. Will could always be taught manners and proper etiquette later. "I will remain so unless you choose to sit down."

"But you'll eat me." Will pointed out, shifting nervously from hoof to hoof. From the looks of it, he was preparing to take off again. Hannibal was going to have none of that nonsense though.

"We have a goblin for that, my dear Will. Come. Sit." Hannibal said in a gentle tone, gesturing to the former messenger. It was lovely when Jareth sent his food. Like he cared about some silly girl wandering about the Labyrinth. If she was foolish enough to lose something to the Goblin King and then want it back, she deserved her fate in Hannibal's opinion. It didn't have anything to do with him anyway unless she chose to enter his woods.

"This is the last time I will ask." Hannibal intoned when the faun hesitated in answer. He watched as Will shivered in response to his calm beckoning, and even more so in growing interest as the faun tiptoed forward on light hoof. The smaller creature settled itself down as close to the meat as it could manage while still trying to keep the furthest distance possible from Hannibal.

Fauns were quick, but wendigos had reach and patience. Timing as well, as Will was soon to learn. Waiting until Will reached for the meat, Hannibal grabbed the faun up easily enough, hauling the stunned creature over to him and into his lap. It was a simple matter to trap Will there in between his longer legs.

To his credit and Hannibal's pleasure, Will fought him, struck out the best he could with small fists, butting head, and cloven hoof to no real effect. It was cute he tried though, flailing about in panic to only succeed in getting even closer to Hannibal. The wendigo simply wrapped his agile arms around the faun's torso to grip at his hips, effectively stilling any escape attempt.

Unlike some in the past in the same position of fate, Will had enough sense to know when he had been beaten, the faun growing lax in Hannibal's hold. The wendigo enjoyed the sensation of feeling Will breathe heavily against him, the smaller creature coated in a slick sheen of fear sweat. He smelled desperate and delicious to Hannibal who leaned in to scent chocolate curls. A slight shake of shoulders and consistent heaving on the faun's part told Hannibal that Will was crying, the wendigo rubbing his cheek up against the other's face to feel the moist salt of sorrow.

"Shhhh…" Hannibal soothed as he petted dark curls, settling his nose against their satin to breathe in deeply. Delightful and delicious. As much as he liked meat properly seasoned though, the faun's tears were beginning to bother him.

Scenting Will caused the faun to try an escape again, his smaller body writhing against Hannibal uselessly in one last desperate attempt to escape the wendigo. The movements only served to show Hannibal just how well they fit together, especially when Will's backside nestled itself into Hannibal's crotch.

Tilting Will's head up and to the side so that he could view his tragic profile, Hannibal watched as the faun refused to look at him, tears spilling down his face to stain it. The wendigo gave into its nature just enough, unable to resist the urge to lick the liquid salt off of smooth cheeks. The faun shuddered with a whimper, his lithe body trembling against the wendigo's solid own.

"Shhhh…" Hannibal hushed again, shifting Will in his lap to make them more comfortable. Keeping one arm firmly in place like an iron bar across Will's waist to press the faun's back to his chest, Hannibal freed a hand to reach over and gather up some of the meat. Waiting until Will grew still again, Hannibal placed a small piece of it to Will's lips. Eyes closed, the faun resisted, until Hannibal pressed it past the tight entrance onto his tongue.

To his delight, Will caught on quickly enough, taking what he was offered once it was tasted. At first hesitantly with wide, white ringed eyes before his greed kicked in completely, Hannibal delighted in how that quick tongue cleaned his fingers of any trace of meat, and soft lips wrapped around the tips of talons in caresses that were starting to melt the wendigo's core into something molten and unfamiliar. The feel of blunt teeth nipping at him for being too slow kindled sparks of strange pleasure within Hannibal, the sensation of it strange but welcome.

Relaxing his hold upon the smaller creature in small increments paced in time to every piece of meat Will took on his own, Hannibal soon enough found the faun relaxed and pliant in his lap, Will resting against him on his own. The little one's trembling had ceased as well, the faun's scent losing its sharp odor of distress. Instead, Will sat sated and full, humming in pleasure.

Leisurely stroking his prize, Hannibal ran his taloned hand along Will's sides, over plains of toned muscle, and through the warm fur that covered goat legs. To Hannibal's surprise, the wendigo was handled back, the faun touching what he could reach, and sinking his clawless fingers into a feathered pelt.

"It's so soft." Will murmured in surprise, marveling at how pleasantly strange the wendigo's fur felt to him. He had expected it be coarse, but much of the wendigo's covering was either soft or silky, the faun turning enough in place to feel Hannibal's chest hair, curling his fingers in it. Feeling eyes upon him, Will risked glancing up to find the wendigo watching him, yet making no move to cease his explorations.

Moving experimentally, Will found that he was permitted to turn around fully, the faun kneeling before the wendigo though Hannibal kept him caged with his limbs. Peeking up at Hannibal's face to find it as unreadable as ever, Will kept touching, letting his fingers glide over lithe muscles, well shaped shoulders, and up the column of a graceful neck. Leaning in, his lips joined in the journey, the faun discovering a strong jaw line and chin with his mouth, his fingertips tracing the outline of a thin lipped mouth before traveling up a long straight nose nicked with scars.

All the while, Hannibal tightened his grip upon him until the seams of their chests met and grew flush, Will having to leave off his exploration to brace his hands upon Hannibal's shoulders to keep himself level with the taller creature.

Finally feeling full for once in what seemed like a long time, Will sighed in contentment as his early dawn gaze of soft blue with waking bits of grey met eyes the shade of blood kissed earth. Resting his weight up against the wendigo's solid frame, the faun reached his hands up to cup Hannibal's face as Will closed the gap between them. Pressing his lips to the wendigo's own, the faun breathed out as the Hannibal breathed in out of shock, parting his lips to gasp. Will took the opening, thrusting his tongue through the gap to lick his way into Hannibal's mouth. Slow at first in thick teasing motions before touching the wendigo's tongue with his own, Will engaged it to twist and roll. Enjoying the flavor of smoke, meat, and something that was all wendigo he found there, Will's hands left off Hannibal's face to ran upward, clutching at locks of silvery ashen hair before his curious fingers felt along the base of black antlers.

Will wasn't too sure what happened next, the faun suddenly finding himself on the ground, his seat of wendigo seeming to disappear right out from under him.

"H-Hannibal?" the faun asked empty space curiously. Nothing answered him back though a few trees opened their eyes to regard him with curious stares. The flora wasn't used to seeing other beings…alive…much less repeat visitors. A waking forest was never a good thing to be in for long, Will having enough sense to leave before the trees got too interested about his presence there. Sparing a disappointed look back at the forest as he ran to the safety of the meadow, Will wondered what had happened to the wendigo, where he had gone when things had just started to get interesting.

Hiding in cool shadow and well hidden by it, Hannibal watched Will glide off over hill and dale with the ease of his kind, fauns naturally light and swift of hoof. Talons touched his lips and face which still tingled from where Will had made contact with his mouth, tongue, and fingers, searing an impression of self upon the wendigo. Reaching lower between his legs, Hannibal found his sex ripe and ready from the attention, a stirring of flesh that had not happened before with another.

It was startling in its occurrence, enough so that Hannibal had felt a need to withdrawn completely to regain some sort of control. The faun was doing terrible things to his willpower, Hannibal wanting to take everything from Will, all except for his life. The thought of the faun being dead at all made Hannibal keen, the low rumbling sound of it making the trees glare at him in brief waking.

Focusing instead on the thought of Will's skin upon his own, Hannibal gripped his meat in hand, rippling his fingers in time along its length to the memory of Will sucking on his tongue and harmlessly nipping at his lips with blunt teeth. Will had been so soft and supple in his arms, lovely in his open desire, fauns easily giving themselves over to pleasure of any kind.

Want pooling in his gut with an intensity close to the curse of his constant hunger, Hannibal came with a growl, feeling bereft in his pleasure without Will there as he emptied himself out into his hand.

The faun would return though. Of that, Hannibal was certain, and when he did, Will would find that the forest was his new home, whether he wanted it to be or not.

OoOoO

TBC


	4. Chapter 4

"Do you even know where you're going?"

Sarah looked down at the odd traveling companion fate had chosen for you, the one who she had so recently deemed as a friend, Hoggle. She still couldn't figured out what kind of fae the Labyrinth's gatekeeper was, but he was definitely of the curmudgeon variety.

"Well no…" Sarah admitted to be answered with a snort of disgust from Hoggle. She pulled a face, but chose to ignore it. "…but we do seem to be getting closer to the castle."

"Oh, that's reassuring." Hoggle grumbled.

Gesturing to the structure as if to prove her point, Sarah bit back a sigh at how far off her destination seemed to be in the distance. She had not misspoken though. With every danger survived and hardship overcome, they did seem to be nearing the Goblin King's castle. For not having any sort of map or guide(Hoggle hardly counted seeing that he kept trying to run off), they were doing pretty well. At the very least, they appeared to be traveling in the right direction.

"I don't hear you coming up with anything." Sarah pointed out as she looked about at their surroundings. "If there was just someone around here we could ask for directions."

The young girl and the gate keeper were presently walking through a large grouping of meadows. The maze of it was formed by rolling hills covered in lush grass in shades of sunlit emeralds, gentle dips of streams that cut through the land, and clusters of trees that provided cool islands of shade. It was lovely and yet so strangely peaceful as well, giving the impression that nothing bad could ever happen here. Sarah found herself wishing that all of the Labyrinth could be like this.

"Yes, cause everyone we've run into has been so helpful." Hoggle rolled his eyes, recalling the ramblings of the Wise Man and his strange hat.

"I ran into you, and you've been very helpful so I'll keep my mind open to the possibility of making new friends." Sarah smiled down at him, making the fae scowl up at her even as he fidgeted with a blush.

"Only because you have my property." Hoggle protested weakly, casting a look at Sarah's belt where his forcefully borrowed pouch of jewels was clipped to her belt. He still wasn't used to anyone referring to him as a friend. It was a strange thing to be labeled, carrying a certain weight to it. Hoggle wasn't sure if he liked the fit of it upon his person, though it felt warm and cozy at times.

Before Sarah could respond, a figure appeared on a nearby rolling peak as if in answer to her wish. It did not stay there or alone for long, several other somethings emerging from over the particularly high hill to dash down its grassy waves of green. On swift hooves, fauns ran and tumbled about with one another, making Sarah gasp in delight. The teenager recognized what the dancers of grass and wind were, the image of fauns quite recognizable from their myths and legends. She had just never expected them to be so beautiful or graceful.

There were eight in all, prancing about and chasing after breezes that seemed to be intentionally taunting them. The herd was led by a dusky skinned pair with bright silver fur that glittered and sparkled like spun metal in the sunlight. For the most part, the fauns were slender and lithe, being made for flight and fancy with delicate features and toned limbs. They wore no clothing of any intentional design, their bodies only adorned with what amused them at the time.

The female fauns mostly wore crowns of wildflowers in their hair, kept in place by their little goat horns, and shiny bits of metal cleverly made into jewelry to accent their fragile looking wrists, necks, and waists. The male fauns wore flower crowns as well, but with clusters of grapes woven into the headpieces, the fruit twisted around their slightly larger horns. All the fauns wore a small satchel of some sort, the pouches made of woven grass and grape vines. Pipes made of reeds could be seen hanging from the satchels, well within easy reach though none of the instruments were being played at the moment.

"They're beautiful." Sarah said with a touch of awe to receive a filthy look from Hoggle.

"They're idiots." Hoggle snapped, his disgust for the fauns and Sarah's infatuation for them obvious. She had been the same way with the fairies until one had bitten some sense into her. If they were not careful, fauns could do more than that, though they were more prone to mischief than any kind of violence. "You don't want to talk to them."

"Why not? They might know the way out." Sarah pointed out. She felt like she had to at least try. Everyone deserved the benefit of the doubt, and anyway, Hoggle didn't seem to like anyone they met.

"The only way they know for sure is the way straight into the bottom of a wine bottle. They won't tell you nothing." Hoggle explained without really doing so as was the way of his kind.

"That's your opinion." Sarah said, striding forward. The movement caught the fauns' attentions, the quick creatures all coming to a standstill to watch the young girl approach them.

"It's common knowledge." Hoggle spat out. He didn't bother to hide his groan of growing despair as he ran after Sarah, the human having longer legs than him.

"Greetings, travelers!" the leader of the herd hailed them in a deep booming voice, the fauns snapping out of their stillness of caution to bound up to them. Hoggle tried not to flinch and failed at that while Sarah broke out into a grin.

"Um, greetings!" Sarah smiled back. The way the fauns milled about her reminded the young girl of being at a petting zoo. Like a lot of denizens who lived in the Labyrinth, the fauns were not shy. Sarah found multiple hands instantly upon her, gently touching her hair clothing, and plucking at her clothing and jewelry.

"Get off!" Hoggle yelled as he flailed about and around Sarah. He made all the fauns skitter back as he kicked up his feet and waved his stubby arms.

"Be nice." Sarah told him as she caught the short fae by his shoulders to make him stop. The fauns certainly didn't look dangerous, but as Sarah was learning, appearances weren't everything in this strange place of other. She still didn't want to insult the fauns though, or come off as unfriendly.

"Hello. I'm Sarah, and this is Hoggle. We are trying to get to the castle…" Sarah began.

"What castle?" a young female faun with auburn hair and doll like blue eyes interrupted. Sarah stared back at her in surprise.

"The Goblin King's castle. The one that's right there, behind you off in the distance." Sarah said, pointing to the obviously there structure. The fauns looked over their shoulders at it to gawk like they were seeing it for the first time.

"Ohhhhh….that thing." the same faun answered in such a manner Sarah began to get a sinking feeling in her belly. Hoggle's snickering didn't help alleviate the sensation.

"Yes, that thing. I'm trying to get to it. Do you know the way?" Sarah asked with a lingering note of hope in her voice. "I'm trying to get my brother back from the Goblin King."

"That's horrible! Didn't the king pay for him?!" a dark haired faun lamented, her countenance lovely and kind. She was closely accompanied by the younger faun with the auburn hair. Sarah wondered if they were related.

"No! What?!" Sarah said confused and a touch horrified. "No, he took him!"

Which was mostly true. Sarah didn't feel the need to go into detail that she had wished her baby half-brother Toby to be taken by the Goblin King Jareth, or that the Goblin King was madly in love with her. Or that Jareth had offered her a way to get the baby back by solving the Labyrinth, but she was working against a clock that seemed to tell time by its own rules.

"Technically you asked him to." Hoggle bluntly pointed out, who had no such qualms.

"Not helping." Sarah said, shooting him a glare. She almost gave into the urge to stomp her foot.

"You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to." the dark haired faun told her benevolently. "You can stay here with us."

"A fine idea! We shall throw a feast for our new guests!" the herd's dark skinned leader declared to a round of cheering from the fauns.

"B-but I can't stay here. I have to get my brother back." Sarah sputtered out to cast down a bewildered look to Hoggle who shrugged.

"I told you so." Hoggle snorted, who decided not to be of any help. Sarah had made her decision, and now it was up to her to figure out how to deal with it. He wasn't feeling too particularly generous at the moment either.

"Look, that is very kind of you and I would if I could, but I have to get to the castle." Sarah firmly interrupted the impromptu celebration to the sounds of disappointment from the fauns. "If any of you know the way…"

"Do you have any wine?" a bearded male faun interrupted her, fauns obviously not well acquainted with the finer points of polite conversation.

"Yeah! Any wine!?" the sentiment was echoed by an older faun, his face filled with laugh lines and held a cheer about it that made his eyes sparkle.

"Beer would be nice too." the dark haired faun added, looking hopefully at Sarah.

"No! I don't have any beer or wine or anything! Do any of you know where I should go?!" Sarah said, beginning to lose her temper. She only had so much time, and the fauns were wasting it by being silly creatures.

"You could go to the whispering streams and take a nap." the dark haired faun suggested, her tone worried but sincere. Sarah felt like screaming.

"You could go play with the fairies." the young faun with the auburn hair added. Hoggle spat on the ground in disgust, barely missing her hoof.

"You could dance." their silver furred leader intoned, all the fauns breaking out into grins at the thought, their slender fingers edging toward their pipes.

"Told you." Hoggle said with a sigh even as he started to edge away from the fauns. Pointing it out again didn't feel like a victory though, not when there was a chance that they would be made to dance. The pan flute music of the fauns was famous for making one lose themselves in the melody, the weak willed becoming nothing more than puppets with their strings attached to the notes. Fauns may not be vicious or fierce creatures, but one could die from dancing if the fauns were to forget about them in the midst of their revelries.

"I heard you the first time." Sarah gritted out before pasting a fake smile on her face. Hoggle was fumbling for her hand, finding her sleeve instead to start tugging at it.

"That sounds all very nice, but we've got to be going now." Sarah said in cheerfully false tones as she navigated her way through the herd. Hoggle followed closely behind her as he kept a tight grip on her clothing.

"You could try the woods." were words that gave Sarah and Hoggle reason enough to pause in their escape, bringing them up short mid-step. The suggestion came from a rail thin faun with striking bright red hair and fur. She had large blue eyes that made her appear delicate yet sharp, like a blade made of glass. "There are paths there that lead elsewhere."

"Thank you." Sarah said in relief. "Finally, a reasonable answer."

"You mean those woods?" Hoggle asked in dismay, thumbing Sarah's attention over to a black forest that bordered the meadow like a wall of moving dark. It was like wound that ran flush to this sun filled place, a festered mark that promised only danger to those who dared to enter it.

"That doesn't look like any stroll I want to take." Hoggle voiced what Sarah was thinking, the girl silently nodding agreement.

"Oh it's protected, I assure you." the red faun told them, titling her head to hide a sly smile.

"Protected by what?" Hoggle had the sense to ask, arching a brow at the red faun.

"Or don't." the red faun said instead of answering the gatekeeper's question. "It's the only way out of the meadows though."

"That doesn't leave us with a lot of options." Sarah sighed, already walking toward the forest. Hoggle grabbed her hand to bring the girl up short.

"We could just go back the way we came." he pointed out with a hopeful look on his craggy face.

"I can't go back. I only have time to move forward." Sarah told him. The clock was ticking, her sand running out in hourglasses Jareth manipulated. Backtracking would not only kill her momentum, but also any chance she had of getting Toby back. The woods were just a risk she would have to be willing to take.

"Into certain death?" Hoggle hated to be the voice of reason, but Jareth had given him his orders. Hoggle's instructions were to hinder, not harm. The Goblin King wanted Sarah to give up and give in to him, not die trying to complete this fool's quest.

"We've faced certain death before and have been fine." Sarah said as she put on her brave face. Pulling her hand free, Sarah started walking toward the forest again with intent and purpose.

"Fine? I beginning to think you don't know the meaning of that word." Hoggle grumbled as he trudged after her.

"You don't have to come with me if you're scared." Sarah offered gently as the woods began to loom over them. The shadows of the place seemed to be rising up to meet them and bid them entry

"I'm not scared!" Hoggle snapped, puffing his chest out. "Anyway, I have an interest in keeping my property safe. Where it goes, I go."

"Alright then." Sarah smiled, offering her hand to the fae who took it reluctantly but still took it none the less.

"C'mon feet." Sarah told them both as they made their way to the woods, the fauns bearing witness to the traveler's folly.

"Do you think they'll get eaten?" the faun known as Abigail asked her peer, Alana, her tone wistful. The older faun smiled at her, running her hand through long auburn hair to start braiding it.

"Maybe. Maybe not." Alana shrugged, her touches soothing as she pinned up Abigail's hair with tiny yellow wildflowers that sparkled like gold.

"I wish they'd had wine." Brian sighed. He picked up his pipes to play a quick tune about them. Some wind danced in answer to it.

"Yeah." Jimmy echoed the sentiment, joining in with his own pipes for a moment before losing interest in teasing breezes. "Oh well."

"Did they really deserve to be told about the woods?" Bella asked the herd, giving Freddie a sharp look. Sometimes the red faun overstepped her bounds and the herd's hierarchy with her mischief.

"Does it really matter? Anyway, I'm curious to see if they run into Will along the way." Freddie smiled, the expression so innocent it was wicked.

"I've been wondering about that myself." Jack sighed, his face line with worry. The strangest member of their herd had been seen entering and exiting the woods recently, something that no creature should have been able to do and live to sneak about it again. That and Will felt the need to hide his activities. It wasn't normal.

"I didn't like the little one." Abigail said as she returned the favor. She twisted Alana's dark tresses with blue blossoms that chimed whenever the faun moved. "He was mean, calling us idiots." All the fauns had heard that, the wind carrying in everything to them, even words. There were no secrets kept from friends of the wind.

"And turning down our feast." Brian grumped. They were still going to throw one, of course…for reasons. It was just more fun with new company because fauns loved to make long toasts. It was their form of poetry.

Linking arms with his mate Bella, Jack shrugged, losing all interest in the travelers. "I don't think we'll have to worry about either of them for much longer. The Ripper will see to that."

OoOoO

The woods were dark and deep, but far from lovely. Sarah and Hoggle huddled together as closely as they could and still be able to walk, very carefully not touching any of the trees.

What could have passed for redwoods in enormous size and width were spared from any human standards of normalcy by being covered with dark bark in shades of violet and plum. That and the trees were covered in eyes from root to branch, the orbs fluttering open every once in while to sleepily gaze at the travelers before nodding off again. It wouldn't have been so bad if the eyes hadn't looked so human, a latent intelligence slumbering there behind closed lids.

No light managed to passed through the high evergreen canopy overhead, the flora's leaves holding the look and feel of heavy velvet and were a strange shade of green. The color was so saturated it could have been mistaken for black, absorbing everything the sun had to offer to let none of it in.

The only sources of light that could be found came from moss that grew in clumps on the trees, casting just enough icy blue light to make the shadows seemed razor sharp and more opaque than they had any right to be. Wandering mists of lost foxfire shed emotes of gold and green inconsistently in its meandering, revealing things moving in the dark all around them. They could see shifts in shade and scurry of shadow from the corner of their eyes, lurking there right at the edges of perception, yet could find no evidence of any birds or small woodland creatures that might dwell there.

The most disconcerted thing about the forest though was its stillness. That no breeze ran through it. The movement of air through the woods came only from the trees' breathing, and that bothered Sarah on a level she never knew she had. She knew as assuredly as she knew her own name that they did not want to wake this wood up for any reason.

The red faun had been right about one thing. There were paths here, clear trails that wound their way through the woods. When they occurred, the crossroads were marked with dilapidated signage, though Sarah couldn't read it. The writing so faded and worn even Hoggle had trouble making out what the markers said.

"You and your ideas." Hoggle muttered as he considered another signpost with squinted eyes. They stood at another crossroads of sorts, three separate paths blossomed from the one they stood on.

"It doesn't seem so bad…" Sarah started to say, her words sounding flat even to her.

"It was the only way." Sarah amended instead, whispering back. Her own brow furrowed as she tried to make heads or tails out of the crooked posts. "I think we should go left."

"Why do you think that?" Hoggle asked, finally looking away from written misdirection to give her a strange look.

"Because the adventure begins when you go left." Sarah told him in all certainty.

"All the more reason to go to the right or straight. I've had enough adventure for a lifetime." Hoggle grunted, considering the other two paths. They all looked the same to him.

"It hasn't been all bad." Sarah said. "We escaped the Cleaners and the Oubliette together."

"It's hasn't been all good either. We had to escape the Cleaners and the Oubliette together. Have you looked around at where we are?" Hoggle sighed, waving his hands about at the woods.

"We just have to careful not to wake the trees." Sarah said thoughtfully, trying to remember any fairy tale or legend that might help them here. Nothing useful came to mind, and what did only scared her, big bad wolves creeping in upon thought and monsters lurking in memory.

"It's not the trees I'm worried about. Have you already forgotten what the faun said about this wood being protected?" Hoggle growled. Humans seemed to be terribly short sighted.

"By what?" Sarah asked, swallowing down fear that was beginning to dry out her mouth.

"Never mind that. The question you should be asking yourself is- are the trees being protected, or are the trees protecting other beings? Nothing is as it appears to be here in the Labyrinth. I have the bad feeling that we have just entered a cage." Hoggle intoned, kicking the useless sign post to watch it fall over with a protesting groan.

"But it's a forest. You can just walk in and out of a forest." Sarah said, stating that like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"Oh can you? Your world must be a simple thing to be able to do that." Hoggle said, giving the girl a sideways look.

"Shhhhh…." Sarah hushed, her head jerking up to face a patch of dark she could have sworn just moved. "Be quiet…I think something is following us."

"I know. It's been with us for a while now." Hoggle sighed. He had thought it was obvious.

"Jareth! Is that you?! Show yourself! I'm not frightened." Sarah called out to the fake night.

"What are you doing?!" Hoggle forgetting about the slumbering woods long enough to yell at her. Things shifted in the gloom. Hoggle hoped it was only the trees stirring.

"I'm tired of his games. Jareth's a bully and the easiest way to win against a bully is to face them." Sarah said with a confidence Hoggle did not feel.

"Or run away. I prefer to do that." Hoggle was quick to offer up.

"Be brave, Hoggle." Sarah said, her bravado enough to make Hoggle cringe even as he admired her for it.

"I would rather to be alive." Hoggle sighed, his eyes dancing from shadow to shadow wondering what was planning to attack them.

"Jareth!" Sarah called again to the dark to have a tall figure emerge from it. Sarah smiled in victory at Hoggle. The expression was short lived though as the figure moved forward into their limited light. Revealed, it was obviously not the Goblin King. For a moment, Sarah mistook it for a tall faun, her mind unable to place what it was.

The being who stood before them was regal, its head baring a dark crown of antlers much like a stag's, though the bone was pitch black instead of white. Instead of the goat legs of a faun, the creature had the bottom half of a deer, its pelt an odd mixture of fur and feather in shades of ink, and the rainbow of oil slicks and oil. The creature's baring was majestic, and its countenance looking carved from stone with deep set sanguine eyes, a complicated thin lipped mouth, and cheekbones that looked sharp enough to cut anyone careless enough to dare and touch them.

"H-hello?" Sarah stammered out as Hoggle valiantly hid behind her.

"Hello." said the creature in a deep, grumbling voice with an accent Sarah couldn't even begin to place. "What are you doing in my woods? Did Jareth send you here?"

"Not exactly. We weren't sent anywhere. We just kind of wandered in. Could you tell us the way out?" Sarah asked, finding that she was stepping back without remembering to do so. Hoggle moved with her in tandem step for step.

"Why would I do that?" the dark figure said, titling its head to the side as it curiously regarded her. The creature's strange calm robbed Sarah of her words, but moved her feet quickly backward. To her horror, as they retreated, the creature advanced.

"You didn't even say please. That was very rude of you, you know. To demand something that like from a complete stranger without any regard to proper introductions. What's to be done about that?" the dark being murmured though Sarah and Hoggle could hear each and every word clearly, terror alleviating the sound of the threats and clicking claws to deafening levels. The creature lowered its head with a grin like a knife wound across its face, the intent to run them through with its horns obvious.

The moment was shattered though as a small figure hurtled itself into the crossroad's space between the travelers and the dark being. A small horned head connected with the creature's greater own, the tense air filled with a 'CRACK' as two skulls harmlessly bounced off each other.

Sarah and Hoggle stumbled back to find a faun in their midst now. Like the other members of its herd, the faun was lithe and slender, his limbs all toned, graceful things made for speed. Unlike the rest of his kind, this faun was dark in coloration, his fur and hair all black curls that made his skin appear paler than it actually was. Blue grey eyes regarded Sarah and Hoggle with open worry and fear. Except for a small bright red mark on his forehead from the collision, the faun appeared to be fine.

"Take the left road! Run!" the faun yelled at them as he threw down what Sarah had mistook for a bulky vest of some kind. It turned out to be great lengths of rope made from braided grass. Without another word, the faun took flight again, his speed making him look as if he were weightless as he ran up tree trunks.

As far as Sarah could tell, the dark being appeared not to be hurt in the slightest by the faun's head butt, the larger creature seeming more miffed than anything by it as the faun darted about him overhead. Flipping off the tree's trunk and twisting to turn midair, the faun's plan became apparent as the end of rope was looped around the creature's antlers. The faun took off again as soon as his hooves touched down on the opposite side to rebound off another tree trunk, repeating the action over and over again until a strange webbing of grass rope kept the creature in place by his own crown of antlers.

The creature resisted the best he could, tearing at the rope and twisting its head, but the faun wasn't pitching its strength against the being. It was using its superior speed to trap the monster by snaring it repeatedly, binding it to the branches overhead with the ends far out of its reach.

Taking the chance they were given, Sarah's and Hoggle's feet beat down the path most left, their escape witnessed only by the waking wood, the trees disturbed into limited consciousness by the creature's roars of discontent.

OoOoO

When he was sure that the girl and her companion had gotten far enough away, Will stopped, coming to rest in front of a very bound Hannibal who growled down at him.

"I'm sorry, but I couldn't let you kill them. The girl is the one journeying through the Labyrinth. The Goblin King would have been very upset if you had killed her." Will told the displeased wendigo. The travelers had been very lucky that Will had learned of them entering the wood from the wind spirits he was still friendly with. It was those same spirits who had helped Will braid the lengths of rope so quickly while the faun misdirected them through the wood by turning sign posts around or making them illegible.

"So you did this to what? Protect me from myself, little faun?" Hannibal said, brooding down at the smaller creature. He tested the limits of his movements, his head kept held high and his arms aloft in Will's clever weaving.

"Yes…" Will admitted quietly as he studied his quarry. He hadn't wanted to do this, but now that he had, Will found that he kind of liked the wendigo all tied up. It made Hannibal look less scary to him, enough so that Will edged closer to wendigo until he could feel the heat of his fur against his own. Feeling powerful, Will leaned into his prey to rest his hands upon Hannibal.

"Now that you have saved me from myself, are you going to let me go?" Hannibal asked, willing to forget about the trespassers now that Will was doing something interesting. The faun was scenting him, that slightly off center nose twitching as it glided over his skin, Will tasting patches of skin that caught his attention with quick little laps.

"Eventually." Will said with a mischievous glint in his stormy eyes, his fingers sinking into the wendigo's feathered pelt to feel its strange softness once again.

"Will…" Hannibal began to say in warning, but trailed off when those small hands came to rest on his belly to start petting the surprisingly soft skin there. That clever tongue soon followed the faun's fingertips, exploring the plains of Hannibal's toned stomach and mapping out the boundaries of his silvering chest hair and dusky nipples. The faun came up as far as the wendigo's collarbones to nibble upon their graceful curvature, but Will dared to go no further. He didn't trust Hannibal not to bite him, especially the way the wendio was staring down at him, his maroon eyes intensely dark.

That didn't stop Will from biting down on the wendigo's chest to leave teeth marks over his right nipple, the ring of blunt impresson marks sluggishly weeping black blood. Enticed by the scent of iron, Will lapped at the wound, the wendigo not flinching once from the rough treatment. Will's hands drifted lower though to carress at where skin melding into fur, knowing how good it felt when the two very different textures of skin were stroked. Curious fingers wandered deeper into the thick of the fur that lay between Hannibal's legs, the faun finding what he really wanted easily enough as the wendigo's cock rose to present itself readily enough to him.

Sinking gracefully to his knees, Will sighed as he wrapped his lips around Hannibal's meat, the feel of it thick and heavy in Will's small hands as he gripped its base. Relaxing his throat, Will took in as much as he could, humming in pleasure at the taste of musk and salt that readily coated his tongue. He looked up to find Hannibal staring down at him with wide eyes and mouth held agape as the wendigo tried to remember how to breathe.

Amused by the reaction, Will hand's were hardly idle, busy exploring the velvet sack that lay behind the length. The light touches upon the sensitive skin of his perineum made Hannibal jerk, but was held in place by his bindings.

Just as Hannibal became torn about how he should feel about those kind of intrusions upon his person, Will let go of him to sit back on his hooves. As the faun rooted through its satchel for something, Hannibal grumbled at the cold sensation of Will's salivia on his cock coming in contact with the open air. Having finally experienced it, he wanted that plush heat all around him again.

A small cry of triumph made Hannibal look down at the faun in time to watch Will take his cock back into his mouth, soft lips being drawn tautly around its girth. The sight was jumbled as Hannibal baulked upon feeling oil slick fingers trace the ringed muscle of his opening. Covered in slick, slender fingers breached him easily enough, slipping past as more of his length was swallowed down at the same time.

Panting, Hannibal threw back his head as Will moved his thoart in ways that made Hannibal want to howl as the faun pushed up with his fingers to stroke him from the inside. Ignoring how Hannibal's cockhead scraped the back of his throat, Will swallowed to ripple contractions around the trapped length, making the wendigo struggle in place. Hannibal seemed to be unused to taking pleasure, his passage feeling tight around Will's fingers as the faun thrust the digits in further in time to the movements of his mouth.

The noises Hannibal was making were soft, breathy little intakes of air like the wendigo was hoarding sounds in his lungs. Will wasn't sure if he liked that, fauns very verbose as they took or were taken, though Will hadn't done either in a while. It was yet another thing that set him apart from his herd, the hedonistic need for pleasure fauns were blessed or cursed with transforming into the hunger that plagued Will now. Being with Hannibal seemed to awaken both in full force, Will wanted to both gratify the wendigo and feed upon him. Resisting the urge to chomp down, Will focused on how Hannibal smelled in this moment, the wendigo's scent wafting off the fur and feather Will pressed his nose up to as he swallowed Hannibal down from tip to root.

On his part, Hannibal struggled with himself, wanting to drive his hips forward. He wanted to throw Will to the ground and just thrust into his mouth with wild abandon. He bit back moans as places deep inside of him were stroked and teased, key nerves easily found to be played with like a tune. Like all of his kind, Will was talented in that area, fauns having a natural aptitude for gracing their lovers with physical bliss.

Bit by bit, his orgasm was coaxed out of Hannibal as Will tightened his mouth around Hannibal's length, hollowing out his cheeks as he added a third finger to fan the digits out. Feeling broken in some ways while whole in others, the wendigo howled in pleasure, waking the forest momentarily with his pleasure. In answer, the trees grumpily shed their velvety leaves in complaint as Will swallowed down a bitter mouthful of salt.

The wendigo was still shaking as the faun licked Hannibal's oversensitive sex clean, Will removed his fingers from him to stroke himself off. His own spent covered his hand soon enough, the faun letting it drip off of his fingers onto the grass. This hadn't been about him, Will taking his pleasure from the tired sag in Hannibal's body and the taste of wendigo's essence in his mouth.

"What now, Will? Now that you have conquered me? Will you give me back my freedom?" Hannibal murmured, staring down at the faun through half lidded eyes.

"Perhaps." the faun answered cheekily before bounding off without a backward glance. When he didn't not return, Hannibal gave up the farce he had been maintaining the whole time. The ropes slipped away, the trees letting go of their ends as Hannibal easily cut the remainder with the razor edges of his antlers.

Sinking to his knees much like Will had done earlier, Hannibal collected up the pearly drops off the forest floor on tip of claw to deposit them on his tongue. Savoring the faun's flavor, the wendigo laid back to revel in the unique tiredness that he was experiencing. No creature had ever touched him like that before, and Hannibal wanted to relived the sensations over again, even it were only in his mind for now.

When his cock twitched in renewed interest, Hannibal wondered if madness could be shared by two. The faun may have gained a hunger for blood and death much like his own, but the wendigo realized that he too may have acquired a different taste for flesh. Want, need, and desire coiled through Hannibal, mollified from his release, but still so there, Hannibal could feel it in his gut.

"Remarkable faun. I do admire your courage. I think I want your heart."

OoOoO  
>TBC<p> 


	5. Chapter 5

"Oh Will….what have you done….

OoOoO

The trees were crying, their wet laments annoying Hannibal to no end. The wendigo was not physically bothered by the rain, his being able to endure extremes of heat and cold with ease. It was just irritating for him to walk around with sodden fur, the feathers within it needing special attention afterward. Hunger was the about only thing that could drive him out of his home's warmth, the constant need for fresh meat the wendigo's curse.

With a very unfortunate fae slung over his shoulder, one whose blood was painting his tanned skin sticky with red, Hannibal made quick strides toward his house. Luckily for him, Hannibal had not needed to go far. An elf had been foolish enough to enter his woods on some quest. The creature's begging had almost been cute, the would be hero trying to appeal to Hannibal's better nature. A flick of claws had turned those pleas into screams.

An odd sound drew Hannibal's attention elsewhere, the wendigo pausing in his homeward bound goals as more tears coated his skin and curled his feathered fur. He was glad he took the time, the sight that greeted him endearing in so many different ways and long awaited.

The only creature who stood a chance of catching a glimpse at Hannibal's better nature was huddled underneath a large fern leaf he was using to keep the rain off his horned head. The flora umbrella was doing a poor job of it though. The faun was drenched despite his best efforts, looking miserable and so lost.

Will had finally come home to him.

"Hello, little faun. What brings you to my woods again?" Hannibal smiled, though he could hazard a guess. Will stunk of desperation, fear, and blood, but not his own. It didn't take a lot to guess something had gone terribly wrong in his herd.

"I killed someone." Will choked out, the admission making the faun stomp his little cloven hooves. Curling in on himself under his leaf only made the faun look smaller than it actually was, more delicate. Fauns were such fragile things, but Hannibal knew that Will was made from sterner stuff than the rest of his herd.

"How does that make you feel?" Hannibal asked to be met with silence, Will ducking his head to start trembling.

"Will, don't be rude. Answer the question, and I will allow you to come home with me." Hannibal pressed, leaning in to use his greater height and spread of antlers to his fullest advantage. Will responded beautifully, his eyes going wide as he crouched down even lower, his cloven hooves sinking into the mud. The faun could still escape if he felt so inclined to do so, and Hannibal would have no chance of catching him if the faun did. Despite that fact, the wendigo was confident that Will wouldn't be running away from him anymore.

"You have a home?" Will blinked up at him in surprise. It was not the answer Hannibal was looking for, but at least the faun was responding to him.

"I'm not a savage. Of course I do, little one. I might be willing to share it with another, but you must give me something back in return." Hannibal found himself chuckling. He kept his voice low and sweet, deceptively soothing. "How did it feel to kill?"

"It felt good. Righteous even." Will whispered, daring to look up at him with wide, frightened eyes.

"Fascinating. You will tell me more, but later. For now, let's get you fed and dried off." Hannibal said, satisfied for now and wanting to get out of the salt rain. "Come along."

When Will didn't move fast enough for him, the wendigo reached down to scoop up the faun with his free arm, keeping him there in the crook of it. To Will's credit, he didn't struggle much. Giving up, Will laid his head upon a broad shoulder so that he stared at the corpse who was to be dinner.

"That smells good." Will mumbled into Hannibal's skin, making the wendigo chuckle.

"He will taste even better." Hannibal told him, taking longer strides than before. He had been in a hurry earlier, but now the distance between his house and here seemed almost unbearably long with Will's body fitting so nicely up against his own. Skin to skin, the wendigo could feel the faun's heartbeat. Oddly enough, it was slowing down to an even pace, Will finding his presence soothing. The scents of meadows and wild flowers coming of the faun certainly confirmed this, untainted by the sourness of fear or the bitterness of anger.

Tired physically and mentally, Will settled into the wendigo that carried him such ease. The idea of a house was new to the faun. He had never even seen one before, only heard about them in stories from travelers who had stayed in the meadows with the herd. While he understood their function, Will couldn't wrap his head around the concept. Why anyone would choose to confine themselves in such limited spaces when the world was so open and vast? The sky was a faun's roof and the earth, their rooms and chambers. Seeing he had little choice in the matter now, Will resigned himself to his fate. It felt like he was always meant to come here one way or another. The faun stared at the dead elf and wondered if he was the wendigo's next meal.

If that was his fate, Will welcomed his death. He had committed the worst crime that any faun could do. He could never return to his herd now, even if he wanted to. Not that his fall from grace had been a great loss. There had never been a place for him there among the other fauns, not really. He had always been different. At best, he had blended in with the others to an extent, mimicking their behavior while trying to bury his own true nature. There were a few individuals he liked, Alana and Abigail being the few and far between, but for the most part, he felt nothing toward the rest of the herd. Experiencing their distain and distrust had taken its toll upon him though.

The wendigo's house was an excellent distraction from such morose thoughts, one that served to make Will completely forget about his current predicatment, at least for a moment. The house had once been goblin in origin, but the all seeing forest had taken the framework over to consume part of it, roots growing securely around mortar and stone. The building had two sentries on either side of it, the trees attached to house from base and foundation to branch and roof. Thick tendrils that were dark green and looked like ivy but were not covered the rest, fighting for space with the blue fungus that lit the woods from within, making the wendigo's house stand out in eerie relief against the eternal night.

It was not a house made for or by the wendigo. That was clear enough as Hannibal ducked through the entryway, mindful of his antlers out of engrained habit as he turned sideways to accommodate his burdens and head. All Will could do was stare about him, the house fitting the description of one from stories in that it had walls, a roof, and floors. Will was not especially partial to the idea of such things. The walls looked limiting and anything could be hiding behind them, and the floors unnecessary. He could approve of the ceiling though, the overhead covering keeping the rain off them nicely.

The inside was interesting enough to look at though, the space filled with what could only be furniture of some sort though Will was uncertain of most items' names or purpose. The space itself had been gutted, the second floor missing entirely to comfortably contain the wendigo's size. Will didn't ask about the original inhabitants of this place. He had a pretty good idea of what had happened to them.

Will found himself carried into another room entirely, this one having a fire pit in it and many other interesting items lined up on shelves and counters. The faun could only assume this was a kitchen or at least, it fit the description of one. Will had a perfect memory for such things, and could recall any story that had ever been told to him. He knew his herd wouldn't remember him fondly, but they would miss him one day for that.

The meat was thrown on a table to bleed out into a pot, the furrows carved into the top of it aiding in this as the fire pit lit itself for the wendigo. Before Will could ask any questions about the room or the house itself, he was whisked away to yet another place. This space lay under the earth itself, a deep hole carved into the dirt. Will didn't like the feel of the cavern, the faun renewing his struggles the further Hannibal took them down.

A great deal of old death resided in this place, smelling sour and metallic. The darkness was broken up by the blue fungus's glow, making it bright enough for the faun to see cuts of salted meat hanging from roots being cured. As futile as it was now, Will fought to make the wendigo let him go, feeling trapped in this place. Hannibal had both arms now to cage him though, the wendigo easily hooking his arm under the faun's furred legs to keep him in place and pressed close to his chest.

"Hush, Will. We are simply going to the spring here to clean off. The salt will dry out your skin and make it itch later. It will also ruin your lovely fur." Hannibal soothed. He enjoyed the stubborn faun's efforts to free himself, but disliked the fear coming off of him. It ruined Will's naturally sweet scent.

The smell of fresh water made Will settle more thoroughly than the wendigo's words as the pair left the meat cellar to come upon an underground spring, the pool of water fresh and clear as a cut piece of azure as it was lit up from within. Tiny fish that shone like starlight make the water sparkle and ripple with strange liquid illumination.

When Will was placed in the midst of it, he found the water was warm and easily came up to his neck as his hooves found the bottom, the faun startling from the sensation of it. All the water he had ever known was cool and flowing. There had been more streams than ponds in the meadow, and even then, all of them had been chilly.

Setting the faun's pipes and satchel aside to keep from getting even wetter, the wendigo settled in behind Will, the stunned faun pulled firmly into a lap so that his lean back settled against a solid chest. Having no other option with water up to his neck, Will made himself keep still, his gaze settling upon the tiny fish that began to nibble their greedy kisses into their skin and fur, hungry to clean the blood, salt, and dirt from it.

Clawed fingertips ran through Will's curls as a cupped palm dumped water into the dark locks, the wendigo cleaning off the faun with great care as the smaller creature trembled against him.

"You smell delightful." Hannibal murmured, leaning in to lick off drops of water that ran down Will's neck.

"Good enough to eat? What does frightened taste like?" Will dared to ask, turning his head as far as Hannibal's hand in his hair would let him.

"Acidic. It leaves a certain tang upon the tongue." Hannibal told him not unkindly, holding Will even closer by sliding his hand from sodden curls to the faun's neck to feel the smaller creature convulsively swallow against his palm.

"The meat is bitter about being dead." Will whispered, tentatively licking his lips to find the wendigo tracking the movement of his tongue. The bloody shading of Hannibal's eyes was mesmerizing to Will, the faun unable to look away.

"What are you bitter about? What do you fear?" Hannibal asked, stroking the faun's skin with clawed fingertips, careful not to mark it.

"You." Will said without hesitation. Hannibal would have applauded but wasn't about to stop touching the faun now that he could.

"And yet here you are. Stop lying to yourself. You're not afraid of me, only what I am capable of. What you yearn to do yourself." Hannibal pointed out, watching Will's face fall into ruin once more. The faun crumbled under the weight of his guilt, resting his body against Hannibal's own to let the wendigo do whatever it liked.

"What I have already done." Will admitted aloud, the truth of it seeming more real now for some reason.

"How did it feel to kill?" Hannibal asked as he let go of the faun's throat to resume washing Will's curls with gentle hands.

"It's the ugliest feeling in the world." Will whispered out in a shaky, barely there voice like the life was being sucked out of him. Hannibal shook his head, knowing there was so much more there to bring out. He wouldn't let the faun hide inside of himself any longer.

"What else?" Hannibal murmured, letting his lips graze the shell of Will's ear, promptly turning it a bright red. Fauns were not one to shy away from intimacy though, Will turning his head to look at Hannibal straight on, his blue grey studying the wendigo's face. Hannibal realized the faun must of liked what he found there because he leaned in to brush their lips together, Will twisting in the wendigo's lap to face him. Desire made Will bold, the faun reaching up to cup Hannibal's face with his hands.

"It felt powerful. I felt powerful." Will said quietly, though his sparse words spoke volumes. Hannibal fought to keep a smile off of his face as he touched their foreheads together, and Will let him, the faun's horns indenting Hannibal's skin. They were not smooth or sharp like his own, feeling coarse to the touch.

"Who did you kill, sweet William?" Hannibal asked, pressing the issue even as Will's lips sought his own, a darting tongue enticingly teasing his bottom lips. Will would have drawn away if not for the wendigo's hands upon him, keeping him well in place.

"Another faun. His name was Garrett. He was trying to take Abigail away to his herd. She wanted to stay with Alana though. He wouldn't take 'no' for an answer. It all got out of hand so quickly…" Will stammered out, the recollection taking its toll upon him as the faun's trembling resume. In his mind, Will relived his moment of becoming, his rebirth.

It hadn't been much of a fight, but then fauns were peaceful creatures, not prone to violence, at least they were not suppose to be. Will had been able to tell that Garrett was the exception to this when he grabbed Abigail and tried to drag her away. While the rest of the herd had watched wide eyed and scared, Will had been the one to step in and take Abigail back. He would be lying to himself if he were to say he hadn't meant to kill Garret. That had been his intention all along as soon as the other faun had made his interest in Abigail known.

In Will's opinion, the only surprise was how easy it had been. The knife wasn't even much a weapon, just something Will had found in his wanderings, the metal of it rusted over and the blade dull. It had been sharp enough to pierce Garret's flesh though, over and over and over again. Alana's words still rung in Will's eyes, clear and sharp as a silver bell, had made his hooves fleet.

"Shhhh…" Hannibal soothed. It was enough for now, the admittance of murder making something blaze within the wendigo as he kissed the faun properly, their press of flesh firm and possessive.

Here, deep in the labyrinth and hidden in the woods of eyes, they had all the time in the world to discover each other.

OoOoO

The End


End file.
